Secrecy surrounds political prisoners in Guatemala

Jovita Tzul in her office in Guatemala City. Photo © Simón Antonio Ramón.

Interview • Simón Antonio Ramón • June 26, 2025 • Leer en castellano

Two big names were added to Guatemala´s roster of political prisoners in late April, but to date, reaction has been hushed. Both men are high profile, one is a cabinet member in President Bernardo Arévalo's current administration. Since their arrests, criminal proceedings have been kept under unusually strict legal confidentiality. No information about what is happening in their court cases can be made public.

The two political prisoners are Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán. In 2023, Pacheco became president of the Council of Mayors of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán and is a member of Guatemala's cabinet. Héctor Chaclán was the treasurer of the Totonicapan Council under Pacheco. The Guatemalan Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) arrested both men on charges of terrorism and illicit association.

Pacheco played a crucial role during the Indigenous-communal uprising that began in March 2023 in response to the government of then-President Alejandro Giamattei's attempt to increase tax collection by forcing small-scale vendors and sellers into the country’s tax system.

Protests escalated when various political figures attempted to prevent the Semilla Movement, led by acting President Arévalo, from advancing to the second round of the presidential elections on August 20, 2023.  As demonstrations intensified, from October 2, 2023, to the early hours of January 15, 2024, members of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán, along with other Indigenous authorities, brought the country to a standstill in defense of democracy and constitutional order.

Little is known about the legal proceedings faced by Pacheco and Chaclán. Both are being charged in a first circuit court for the crimes of terrorism and obstruction of criminal proceedings. On June 9, the Fourth Chamber of Appeals added a third charge of unlawful association. The public prosecutor has prohibited the disclosure of any details, invoking confidentiality of proceedings.

On June 13, I interviewed Maya K'ich'e lawyer Jovita Tzul in Guatemala City. Specializing in Indigenous peoples' rights and transitional justice, she has litigated in proceedings of notoriety including the so-called Diario Militar or Alaska massacre cases. Tzul addresses how the judicial concept of confidentiality of proceedings has been applied arbitrarily by the Public Prosecutor's Office, judges and magistrates in various politically-motivated cases, as in the criminalization of Pacheco and Chaclán. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length and translated to English by Ojalá.

Simón Antonio Ramón: What is case confidentiality in criminal cases, and what is its history?

Jovita Tzul: It is a procedural concept that exists in Guatemalan law, limiting public access to a judicial investigation. It can be used in cases where publicity surrounding an investigation could hinder the pursuit of justice. 

There are two requirements: the first is that no indictment has been issued. If the investigation is being carried out without implicating any named individual, the process can be kept confidential, but when a person is being charged and an indictment is issued against them, secrecy must be lifted precisely because of the constitutional guarantee of open courts.

Article 314 of the Criminal Procedure Code establishes that proceedings are confidential to the parties. When an inquisitorial justice system is reformed into an accusatory system—as Guatemala’s was in the early 1990s—the process became public because one of the fundamental pillars of the accusatory system is that of open courts.

But when the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) began investigating criminal structures entrenched in the state, case confidentiality was invoked because the investigation treated presiding government officials. The creation of the Law against Organized Crime established confidentiality of proceedings in its Article 18 due to the kinds of investigative methods required by that law.

However, in the cases we’re currently looking at that involve the criminalization of journalists, human rights defenders, and Indigenous authorities, legal confidentiality is no longer being used for the purpose in which it was created.

Legal precedent is clear about what can be kept confidential, namely the proceedings and the investigation. What is unclear is whether this also covers procedural issues, including whether or not a hearing has been scheduled. This is a specifically procedural circumstance, it won’t affect the investigation.

SAR: From 2022 to date, the Public Prosecutor's Office and the justice system have increasingly made use of judicial confidentiality. Why is it said that this figure has been abused and what does that imply for due process?

JT: The excessive and arbitrary use of confidentiality we are currently seeing violates due process. In Guatemala, the Constitution prohibits those accused of a crime from being tried in a secret court.

That’s how we know the justice system serves a dual purpose: a punitive purpose against the person being tried, and a pedagogical purpose through which society has the right to be informed. And so, if there is confidentiality in the carrying out of a trial, that in itself constitutes a violation of due process.

SAR: Confidentiality has been most invoked in those recent proceedings against legal officials such as lawyers and presiding judges—starting in 2022— as well as CICIG investigations around corruption within state institutions. In the case of Indigenous peoples, are there any cases that have been tried in secret?

JT: There have only been a few investigations by the Prosecutors' Office for Organized Crime, mainly in Xalapán, Jalapa, San Juan Sacatepéquez, and Santa Cruz Barillas, where cases were opened against some community leaders and authorities for forgery, kidnapping, illegal association, and extortion in the context of extractive projects.

Confidentiality was implemented to ensure the investigations were conducted properly. In those cases, when individuals were arrested, confidentiality was used in accordance with the purpose established by law. But in current cases which the public has become aware of, such as that of Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, the proceedings are being held in secret, despite the fact that the initial hearing took place in April.

SAR: Could these cases set a precedent for future criminal proceedings aimed at criminalizing certain individuals or groups?

JT: Definitely. That’s why it's necessary to name that we are experiencing a regression in procedural and constitutional guarantees. When confidentiality is used arbitrarily, as it has been in this case and in the cases of José Rubén Zamora, Stuardo Campo, Virginia Laparra, and Claudia González, we can see a pattern of at least five cases. The repetition of these patterns normalizes them to society.

Without due process, the right to defense is not guaranteed. I insist, open courts must be guaranteed in order for the right to defense to be effective. It’s different when the accused requests that their trial be held behind closed doors. But in most cases, the accused requests that their trial be made public.

SAR: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has condemned these cases as lacking any legal basis, which brings to mind various cases in the (regional) departments where judges prevent public proceedings. Do you see a pattern there?

JT: What I see is arbitrariness. I have litigated many cases outside of the capital city, where judges refuse to allow society to scrutinize their actions: that’s our real fear. Judges excuse themselves on the grounds of security, citing the security of the court and its workers, or even the Prosecutor's Office, and orders that the hearings not be made public. But they have no real authority to do so.

Unfortunately, in the Guatemalan justice system, in addition to this backsliding, a climate of impunity reigns. There are judges and officials in the Public Prosecutor's Office who feel total impunity to act in an arbitrary manner, knowing there will be no consequence. It is a vicious circle that’s expanding, which is precisely why I mentioned the pedagogical aspect. If this happens in one case, it will happen in another, and it begins to be normalized.

SAR: When you say that there is not enough discussion about this issue, who is discussing it? Where should that debate take place?

JT: This discussion must take place at the constitutional level. We must weigh whether a request for a secret investigation is superior to the principle of open courts guaranteed in the Constitution and in international treaties.